"Sam!"

At Green's call, Sam stopped, turning around. He hadn't even quite made it out of the cafeteria, the smell of coffee and eggs still heavy around him.

Presley, who he'd had breakfast with, leaned briefly in before going on his way. "I'll see you later."

Sam nodded, then fixed a smile on his face to greet Green as he caught up with him. "Morning."

"Good morning. Oh, we can walk; it's still a bit overcast, but at least the storm has blown over." Green led him out of the cafeteria. "I missed you at my table this morning."

"Yeah, I, uh...I wanted to make sure Father Presley was okay. After yesterday."

"Of course." Green nodded, then grimaced. "That was the first exorcism of that...caliber Father Presley has been present for. I think it was a difficult experience for all of us. What are your plans for the morning?"

"I was gonna check on Dean real quick, then head to the library," Sam said honestly. "See if I can't find anything useful."

"Ah...more research." Green smiled as they left the building, but hesitated before he said anything else. "Sam, I wanted to apologize to you for how short I was yesterday, during our conversation about the records. I had just discussed Father Presley's performance with him, and I'm afraid the exorcism itself may have left me a little shaken. This is the work I've dedicated my life to, but as I'm sure you can imagine, every ritual takes its toll."

"No, I-I get it," Sam assured. "It's okay."

"Still. I should have had more patience." It was cool outside, damp. None of the renewal Sam tended to think of with rainstorms, though. The plants didn't even look better, more like it had turned to hail sometime during the night. The sidewalk was papered with wet, torn petals, bruised in the shape of footprints. "I hate to ask this of you, so soon after the help you provided yesterday. But you demonstrated such remarkable skills that I was very much hoping you'd be willing to assist during another exorcism."

"On Dean?" Sam asked with a frown. They went through that kind of thing every day?

"No, no. We like to wait a few days between procedures, to give the patient's physical body and soul time to heal," Green assured. "This would be a different patient. Heather Estes."

The name had clicked into place for Sam by the time Green continued. "She's been with us for several months now, and her condition is worsening. I'm afraid the demons within her are taking their fury at us out on her, which is why it's so imperative we free her as soon as possible. So she can recover."

The no sat ready in Sam's mouth, repulsed and horrified. He'd seen the bruises the night before last. The exhaustion. The obvious toll taken by a very real illness fed into a metaphorical demon by literally everyone in Heather's life. The idea of being part of that, of even not actively doing anything right now to stop it, sounded about as appealing as losing his fingernails in a car door.

But they needed to find out what was going on here, even if it was just a cult abusing kids for being sick or, in some cases, totally normal. They needed to know what to do to bring it to a screeching halt. And that meant Sam had to watch at least one "exorcism" of somebody he already knew for a fact wasn't possessed.

"Of course," he said with a nod, and hoped Green thought he was just tired, not hating every second of this.

"Thank you." Green gripped his shoulder, gave it a solid squeeze. "I knew you, of all people, would understand the need. You'll have several days' rest after this, I can guarantee it."

He led Sam to gather the supplies they'd need. Holy water, crucifixes, vestments. Predictably, most were in the church, although Green kept a personal kit in his office. He used the bible from it, his own copy, every time, but the rest was for "field work."

"How long's the average stay here?" Sam asked Green, as he swept an armful of tiny water bottles out of the supply closet and into the waiting box.

"Well, that depends." Considering the water in the box, Green took a few bottles out, put them back. "Of course we hope that the exorcism is effective on the first try, and the patient is able to leave immediately. Or perhaps in several days' time, after only a few rituals. Most of our patients, thankfully, are like that; their possessions aren't that severe. But…you've seen firsthand the kind of demon that can necessitate a much longer stay." Hoisting the box, Green regarded Sam a little bleakly. "Months."

Sam was silent when they entered Heather's room. It was just the two of them this time, and a nun Green introduced as Sister Agatha. Just like last time, they stood back as she strapped the patient to the bed.

Heather looked worse in the daylight. Thinner, older, hair dull and unhealthy even where it hadn't wound itself into knots against her pillow. There were scabs around her mouth, like she'd been chewing on her dry lips. She struggled, crying out, as Agatha strapped her in, but didn't seem to have a whole lot of strength.

"No, no, you can't tie me down, the things they do to my face when I'm tied down, they can - my face, I need to pray, I need my hands, you need to let me pray, I need to - " Her eyes, already wild and rolling in her sockets, happened to rake across Sam, and widened. "I've seen you. You. I know you, there was water, the other people you brought with you, they kept talking to my - "

Sam glanced tensely at Green, but he didn't seem bothered at all. Which would make sense. If he really thought Heather was possessed.

"This is Father Unterweger, Heather," Green told her, voice clear and slow. "You've never met him before. He's going to help me today."

"No, no, no, no." Heather whimpered. "I don't want to. You're going to touch, they're touching my face, I need to be able to…"

"Right." Green exhaled sharply when she trailed off into mumbling and tugging vacantly at the straps. "Let's get started, then."

Sam braced himself as Green began to pray in Latin. Heather screamed, throwing her head back, her entire body heaving with sobs so violent they sounded more like retching. She pulled, breaking more bruises into her wrists and ankles. Agatha, having retreated to a safe distance, bowed her head over the rosary tangled in both hands and followed along with Green, lips moving silently.

Green bent as he came to the end of the prayer, pulling a bottle of holy water out of the box with one hand and gripping his bible with the other. Definitely had a routine he liked to stick to. Advancing slowly on Heather, he ordered, "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, demons, I command you: tell me your names."

Heather gasped, then wailed, shaking her head back and forth on her pillow. Eyes squeezed shut, her hands were fists, and she was moving too much for Sam to be sure, but he thought there was blood welling around her nails. His jaw was aching with how tightly he was clenching it.

"Tell me your names!" Green raised the holy water, whipped a wide arc of it across Harriet's shuddering body.

When it hit her, she shrieked loud enough to have Sam's ears ringing, writhing in her straps. And wherever it was wet, steam boiled off her skin with a seething hiss.

Sam bolted forward.

"Sam, stay back!" Green warned, but Sam ignored him, too intent on tugging a handful of blanket up from underneath Heather and trying to use it to wipe her dry. He pulled her scrub top, blotchy with moisture, away from her skin.

It hadn't been water. It couldn't have been, and that thought kept pounding dizzyingly through his mind. He didn't smell any of the noxious chemical scents he associated with acid, though, so maybe it had just been hot. Either way, he needed to get it off her as fast as he could. And then he needed to put Green through the nearest window.

Except that Heather's skin was perfectly fine. Dry, mottled with bruises in a couple places, but overall smooth and unbroken. There should have been pitting, even with seconds of exposure, raw flesh eaten exposed. Or at least redness, with boiling water. Swelling. But there wasn't anything at all.

Slowly, Sam stopped trying to wipe what he was realizing probably wasn't anything harmful off the writhing girl below him. Had to be something else, some kind of party trick. He couldn't think of anything off the top of his head, but -

Then Heather opened her eyes, and they were black.

"Hebedir," she hissed, then a rapid string of words he didn't recognize. Clearly a language, harsh and heavy with all the consonants of the Fertile Crescent, but he didn't know it. Not right away.

It smelled like something was burning. Not just anything, either - burning meat. He'd smelled it enough to recognize it in his sleep.

Sam was still trying to work out the language, since that seemed like the one problem he could solve right now, when Green seized him by both shoulders and shoved him aggressively back. Sam stumbled, coming to a stop with both palms flat against the wall. Green retreated, glaring.

"I said, stay back." His attention swung to Heather again and he raised the crucifix, beginning to shout in Latin as he got on with the ritual.

Sam stayed where he was, staring, for the next twenty or so minutes. Heather screamed, and Green drenched her in holy water that bubbled off skin it left perfectly untouched. Growing increasingly red-faced and sweaty, Green demanded names, over and over again. He didn't seem to be making much progress.

Finally Heather, or maybe something inside her, broke.

"Baal!" The shrill, strained quality of her voice made Sam's throat hurt. "Beelzebub! Mammon! Moloch!"

Then she collapsed bonelessly onto the mattress underneath her, totally limp. Blood ran from one ankle, tears from the corner of either closed eye, hair and clothes matted to her with holy water and sweat. Her breathing was shallow, and so raspy Sam could hear it from across the room.

He took a step forward. It wasn't like he could test her again with Green and Agatha in the room, but right now, he was less worried about that than he was her vitals, or the damage she might've done to herself. Green stopped him with a heavy hand on his shoulder.

"I-I just wanna make sure she's okay." Sam glanced at Green, who shook his head.

"Sister Agatha can take care of that. We should go." Still holding onto his bible, Green brought Sam out of the room.

Green kept hold of him until the door had closed behind them. Sam was still going over everything he'd seen, trying to pick out sleight of hand or anything he might have missed, coming back again and again to the possibility he hadn't missed anything at all and reeling over it. But right now, he knew damage control needed his full attention.

"I'm sorry, I don't. I don't know what came over - "

Green cut him off with a loud, exhausted sigh. Standing in the hallway, he turned to Sam, hands folded over his bible. He regarded him for a second, and when he spoke, neither his tone nor his eyes were unkind.

"There's no need to apologize. This was my fault. Heather is a...very difficult, complex case we haven't had much success with. The symptoms of her torment are highly disturbing, and I thought you'd be all right, considering your experience with Mr. Kemper. But I keep forgetting your age, and your inexperience. Not to mention that you assisted with a very violent ritual less than twenty-four hours ago." He shook his head. "I'm sorry for putting you in this situation, Sam. Go get some rest."

"All right," Sam agreed quietly. "I'll just check on Dean on my way out."

"I think it would be best if you stayed away from all patients," Green replied firmly. "Just for the rest of the day."

The sudden flash of resentment that those words sent through Sam was so strong it practically left his ears ringing. He had to catch his breath before he nodded and turned away, making his way out of the building. It had been a long time since he hated anyone like that, all of a sudden, in reaction to something they said or did.

Then again, it had been a long time since anybody had tried to separate him from Dean, too.

He went to the library. He couldn't help being jealous of it. His own, at home, took up the entire attic, but it wasn't that big of a house, and he definitely didn't have copies of this many religious or supernatural texts. A lot of these, he realized as he browsed through the shelves, were rare. And old. "Belongs-in-a-museum" levels of rare and old.

Then again, Green had essentially admitted to him during the tour that a lot of the nuns and priests who worked here had stolen books from their churches when they got kicked out. And Sam was glad they had, as he carried pile after pile to a table and got to work. He needed to figure out what was going on here, in the same way he needed water and air and touch.

He only left for dinner (herb-crusted chicken and rice pilaf, served again with wine he didn't drink), then came right back, with a quick detour to the admin building to grab Heather's file. Nobody told him he couldn't take it, which counted as permission, and no one bothered him.

The pain of the gnawing uncertainty, as physically exhausting as walking on unstable ground, was really only part of it, Sam was aware as he took notes and bounced one knee up and down. He stayed, researched, because he didn't want to go back to his room, with its tiny window and tinier bed and lonely, sad plant. They hadn't even been here that long and he already missed home. He missed the pines, the mountains, the way the wind smelled like sulfur when it blew from a certain direction, but like Dean-sulfur, not Hell-sulfur, clean and good and natural. He missed the handmade quilt Dean had insisted on buying for their bed. The posters and comic-book covers Vaughn had papered the walls of his basement room with (which wasn't helped by the pictures Vaughn kept texting him of the drawings he was working on now, only half-loading because of the poor reception). The kitchen, large and light and well-equipped.

This place didn't have any of that. It didn't even have Dean, most of the time. Even years ago, after he'd lost his cabin, when he'd felt like this but worse, he'd had Dean.

Speak of the devil, Dean found him still in the library long after dark.

"You," he commented, "really oughta be in bed. You need sleep to keep doing all those fragile little human things you do."

"I don't need sleep," Sam answered curtly. "I need answers."

"Swear I've heard that somewhere before." Dean sat on the table, very much in Sam's way. Raising his hands in exasperation, Sam sat back and looked up at him. "I missed you today."

"Green revoked my exorcism privileges," Sam responded, then reached for another book. "So. Get this: girl in the room next to yours is possessed."

"No," Dean stated flatly, "she's not."

"She is."

"She's not," Dean repeated. "Did we not go over this night before last? Evidence looked pretty conclusive to me."

"I was in there with Green this morning." Sam set his elbows on the table, rubbed his face hard enough to make his sinuses ache. "She showed signs of possession. Holy water steamed on her, flinched at the name of God, spoke...something. It wasn't Hebrew or Aramaic, but it was similar, and it was old." He glanced at Dean. "Had black eyes."

"There aren't any other demons, Sam." Dean wasn't angry, not yet, but it sounded like he might get there if they kept talking about this. "Not anymore. Especially not here, we'd know."

"I-I don't know what's going on, then." Sam sighed, stood up. "I need to check on Heather. The possessed girl. And then I need to go into town and see if I can't find an internet café or something."

He gestured to his laptop. Dean frowned. "They don't have wifi here?"

"They do in the admin building, apparently," Sam responded, "but when I tried to get the password earlier, you would've thought I'd asked Sister Joan where she kept her personal copy of the Ninety-Five Theses." Dean just stared at him for a long moment. "What?"

"I don't think it's good for you to be here," Dean stated, shaking his head. "You're getting nerdier."

They checked Heather, who was out completely cold. Her wrists and ankles, under the gauze they'd been wrapped in, were a series of oozing, swollen nightmares, but other than that, there was nothing off with her. Her skin still wasn't burned, and she didn't react to any tests. Not the holy water Sam had made himself or what he'd gotten from the church, not iron, not salt or the name of God or a real exorcism ritual.

She woke up once, whispering brokenly to Sam, "Why are all you doing this to me?" Before he could answer, she was under again.

He looked helplessly at Dean, who shook his head.

"I wanna heal her," he said quietly, "but you know the bastards'd take that as another sign of possession. Best thing we can do for her's figure out what this place's game is and shut it the fuck down."

Sam put a hoodie, jeans, and sneakers on back in his room. Depressing as it was to go in there, Dean correctly pointed out people would talk if they saw a priest out at an all-night diner or whatever, maybe enough to get back to the Center. Then he brought Sam into town, where they tracked down the nearest twenty-four-hour cafê, all but deserted and with a barista asleep at the counter. Sam bought a passable latte and sat down with his laptop, and Dean, who'd stayed outside out of sight, left. Had to keep up the appearance of being stuck in his room.

It was several hours, coffees, and bouts of mounting frustration later before Dean returned, wearing jeans that folded in puddles around his ankles and a flannel halfway buttoned over his scrub top.

"Found anything?" he asked, sliding into the booth across from Sam.

"Nope," Sam replied, looking up from his laptop only long enough to confirm Dean was wearing his clothes. "Probably not a demon, though."

"What tipped you off on that one, Sammy?" Dean asked dryly. "Fact you closed the Gates of Hell a few years back have anything to do with it?"

Sam gave him an unimpressed look. Hopefully, the headache that currently felt like it was working on swelling his brain out through his eye sockets lent it more weight than it had on its own.

"If I could just figure out what language she was speaking, that might narrow it down."

"Uh huh. Listen." The unexpected nerves in Dean's voice made Sam look up, and even lower the screen of his laptop a little. "Been meaning to mention this to you for a while now, but there's definitely something at that place. Or maybe a lotta somethings. But whatever it is, feels like it's waking up and moving around. I can feel it. Whole place's starting to fucking reek."

"Like, figuratively?" Sam asked, frowning. "'Cause...I think it already did."

"No, literally." Dean shook his head. "Smells like somebody getting burned alive."

Sam stared at him, thinking about the whiff he'd gotten when he saw Heather's eyes, then went back to his computer. Or tried to, at least. Before he could, Dean had firmly snapped the screen down, nearly taking his fingers off at the first knuckle.

"H-hey! Dude, careful, I bought that like six mo - "

"You're not gonna be able to help anybody if you hammer yourself into the ground," Dean said flatly. "Sam, what does this make? How many times have we had this conversation?"

Sam blew out a breath. "Haven't had to have it in a while."

"Haven't had a case like this in a while, either." Dean slid out of the booth, and offered Sam a hand. "You need sleep. Gotta be up for priest shit in three hours."

It was raining again when they got back to Sam's room, savagely. Silent flickers of lightning threw shadows like crawling ants all over his walls.

"This isn't you, is it?" Sam asked, gesturing to indicate the weather.

"Course not." Dean seemed offended. "Sure it's not you, Jesus Jr.?"

"We both know I haven't had any issues like that in years." Sam laid down, not bothering to so much as take his shoes off, and looked up at Dean. When Dean moved, he reached up impulsively, grabbed onto his hand. "Hey. Are you...how're you doing?"

Dean blinked down at him. Sam couldn't see much, between the glowing fractions the storm lit up, but he looked taken aback. At some point, his eyes had changed.

"I'm fine," he said eventually. "Why?"

"I don't know, 'cause you're strapped to a bed in a tiny room twenty-three hours a day?" Sam squinted. "They took your stuff, we've hardly gotten to see each other since we got here. I feel like shit, and I at least get to move around and do stuff."

Dean didn't say anything for a while. Then, "Scooch."

Sam did, rolling onto his side with his back against the wall so Dean could get in bed with him. Once they were crammed together on top of it, fitted into each other like puzzle pieces, Dean observed, "Tiny bed."

"My feet hang off the end."

Dean laughed. Not a chuckle, either, a real laugh. Sam put an arm over him, dragged fingertips down his spine, feeling it out bump by bump through the double layers of flannel and polyester. The laugh trailed off into an appreciative groan.

"Gotta admit," Dean said after a while. "This ain't turning out to be as fun as I thought it'd be."

"Me, either," Sam had to admit.

They laid there for a while longer. It felt uncomfortably like the sleeping situation in Bobby's bunker six years ago, when Sam had been dying. Dean smelled like cheap soap, but Sam figured at least they were letting him shower. Eventually, stroking his hair, Dean murmured, "I gotta go."

"I know. See you tomorrow."

They kissed, something they both dragged out for longer than they probably needed to. Then Dean left.

Sam laid fully clothed on top of the covers, hands folded over his stomach, eyes on the ceiling. There was no way he was gonna be able to get any sleep tonight, he already knew, and the coffee was only part of it.

The wind outside sounded like laughter, and drums.

The next day was Sunday, which meant Mass.

Sharing an umbrella with Presley, Sam was a little relieved as they crossed the campus to the church. The ceremony would definitely last longer than the standard morning prayers had earlier, and he couldn't imagine it would be anything but traditional. Hopefully that would translate into him being able to doze, just a little, without anybody noticing.

It was freezing out. Still raining, though not as violently as last night. The campus looked bedraggled, brown spots appearing on the grass. Sam couldn't help sympathizing with the sagging trees and bowed flowers, shedding leaves and petals.

"Are you feeling okay?" Presley gave him a worried glance. "You don't look too good."

"I'm fine," Sam assured him. "Rough couple of nights, that's all. Hard being away from home."

"Where's your parish?"

"Uh, just outside of Yellowstone."

"Ooh, wow." Presley looked impressed. "That's some gorgeous country. I've never been, but no wonder you miss it. Lord did a good job on that one, huh?"

"Yeah." They climbed the steps, entered the vestibule. "It's a nice place. Good...good people."

The Center didn't have the biggest church Sam had ever been in, but it had obviously been the focus of the lion's share of however much money they'd poured into this place. All of the gold and soaring windows and high ceilings he would have expected from a Catholic church were in place, a lavish altar, surprisingly comfortable pews. Sam took his seat.

There were patients here. Just a few, probably the least-problematic cases, if Sam had had to guess. They looked distant, listless, some with eyes like dolls. One man had a rosary, was already bent nearly double over it, praying in a loud whisper.

Dean wasn't among them, of course. Neither was Heather.

Father Green performed the ceremony. It went quickly, probably because of the light sleep Sam managed to scrape out in small, admittedly-guilty increments. He told himself he wouldn't have let his eyes close if he didn't need it so desperately.

It had stopped raining by the concluding rite. Warmed up some, too, though the wind had started blowing again. Feeling faintly rejuvenated, Sam went back to the library. The only thing he'd put up last night was his laptop. It didn't look like the place got a ton of traffic, especially not when it came to the books he was using, and he wasn't worried about anyone seeing what he was researching. It was pretty easily passed off as being relevant to demons and possessions, because it was.

He'd left a serious mess last night, books strewn all over the table. He didn't remember doing it, but considering how he'd felt this morning, that didn't strike him as all that weird. He set his laptop down, started tidying things up, stacking books in neat files and making sure he'd marked his places with sticky notes and, in the case of the more fragile volumes, plain slips of paper. It didn't take him much time to realize something was wrong.

Heather's file was missing.

That wasn't weird either, Sam rationalized, hands flat on the table as he stared down at the books. He really should have put it back in the records room before he left last night, which was doubtless where it was now. Somebody else had cleaned up after him. He really needed to start being more careful.

He jogged to the admin building, not wanting to waste any time. God, he was seriously starting to miss running, hadn't had the time or energy to go since he'd gotten here. It had only been a few days, but he already felt heavier, darker. In a lot more ways than physical.

Mary Ruth, one of the nuns who'd assisted with Dean's initial exorcism, was in the front office when Sam arrived. "But I thought we were having pasta primavera and salad - oh, good morning, Father Unterweger."

"Hey." He managed a quick smile.

"I don't know what to tell you." The other nun ignored him. Sam didn't know her name, but their conversation followed him down the hall as he made a beeline for the records room. "The lettuce is full of slugs and the tomatoes somehow all have blossom-end rot. I have no idea what's gotten into the garden lately, but I suppose the Lord just wants us to have macaroni and canned green beans tonight."

Cattle mutilations were a sign of demonic activity, but Sam wasn't sure about crop failures outside of what lightning storms usually caused. He also really, really didn't like how much it looked like things going sideways for all the plants on the Center's property had coincided with his and Dean's arrival.

Yet another problem (or maybe just a facet of the same one) he couldn't seem to let go of. Maybe that was why it took him so long to realize that Heather's file wasn't in the records room, either.

Sam was methodical, made sure it hadn't just been misfiled. He went through every shelf and drawer, not just the one it would have made alphabetical sense for the file to be in. Twice. He looked underneath the cabinets and the cases, the desk in the middle of the room, on top of everything, but eventually, there was only one thing left to admit: it was gone.

The morning's Eucharist sat in Sam's stomach like a handful of buckshot. He went to Green's office.

"Father Unterweger, I'm sorry, he's - " Bernard began, standing up from her desk, but Sam brushed past her, tense.

He needed to know. He thought he already knew, but wanted so desperately to be wrong.

"I'll just be a minute." Sam opened the door before Bernard could get to him, leaning in. "Hey - "

He cut himself abruptly off, a special breed of embarrassed shock flushing his veins like ice. There was a family in Green's office, sitting in front of his desk. A dad in a sweater and jeans, a mom with a golden cross around her neck, both respectable and middle-aged. A kid between them, obviously uncomfortable in a long-sleeved shirt and freshly-combed hair, maybe around fifteen. One of his legs was twitching.

They were all staring at him, including Green. Sam's mouth opened.

"Hello, Sam," Green greeted smoothly, before he could say anything. To the couple, he said, "This is Father Unterweger, one of our priests. Father Unterweger, these are the Petersens."

"...hey." Awkwardly, Sam half-raised a hand, smiled. "Sorry. I'll just - sorry."

He closed the door, stepped back. He wanted desperately to just leave, maybe go back to his room and climb under the mattress, but needed to ask about that file. He hoped his face wasn't as red as the heat made it feel.

Sister Bernard eyed him disapprovingly as she pushed herself up. Going to the corner, she called in the direction of the main office, "Sister Mary Ruth? Are you still out there?"

Green's door opened a minute later, and the Petersens came out. Sam smiled tightly at them. Mary Ruth took the parents in one direction, talking quietly to them, while Sister Bernard took the boy in another, a hand between his shoulder blades. Green, who'd followed the family out, watched them go, then looked at Sam.

"I'm sorry," Sam said immediately. "I didn't realize you were in a meeting."

"It's all right. Please, come in." Green gestured, and Sam obeyed. Even the indoor plants weren't looking all that good, Sam noticed as Green shut the door. The ivy was crisping at the edges of its leaves, curling up like tiny fists on the cross.

Could just be the lack of light from all the cloud cover lately. Could be something else.

"That was Wyatt." Sam looked at Green, who was holding his hands in front of him, fingertips pressed together. "This will be his fourth stay with us."

"Are you serious?" Sam couldn't hide his shock.

"Some people draw demons to them more readily than others." Green shrugged. "Being possessed or pursued once can open you up to being targeted again. Wyatt's case is...a sad one. I have no idea how his poor parents manage." He shook his head. "The demons say such foul things to them when they enter him."

"That's awful." Dragged back here four times for what Sam would bet a few body parts had never been demonic possession.

"It is," Green agreed. A pause, then, "But it's not your concern. Not yet, at least, and I know it's not why you came in here. What can I do for you?"

"Heather Estes," Sam told him, straightening his back and folding one hand over the other. "Her file. I had it last night, but now, I can't find it anywhere."

Green heaved a massive sigh, one that didn't seem to actually relieve any tension. He looked old suddenly, old enough Sam had to question if he'd originally been wrong about pegging him as being in his fifties. Turning to lift a coat off the rack near his door, he didn't look at Sam as he said, "I think we ought to take a walk."

Sam swallowed.

Outside, it was overcast, and the kind of clinging damp that settled in bad joints like black mold. Sam smelled something burning. Maybe the kitchen was having a hard time with that macaroni.

He was just about to ask about the file again, since Green hadn't said a word since they left the admin building, when Green cleared his throat. "Heather is gone."

"Y-you mean, she left?" Sam didn't know why he blurted the question out when he already knew exactly what Green meant.

Green shook his head. Sam felt like someone had just dragged all his organs out of him with a rake, tines pinging harshly off ribs and vertebrae.

"I mean she's with the Lord."

"What happened?" She'd looked awful, but not death-awful. Sam had seen worse in the mirror while he was doing the Trials. But...back then, he'd been surrounded by people who wanted to help him, and knew how to.

Heather hadn't had that luxury. Nobody, not even Sam, had tried very hard to help her get it.

"She gave the fight everything she had. Immensely strong girl, unshakeable faith." Green glanced up at the sky. "Ultimately, though, the...strain was too much for her."

His eyes were wet, Sam realized when he saw what little sunlight there was shining off them. Swollen, too. Like he'd already had himself a good, hard cry earlier. Sam found himself suddenly burning enough energy to run a marathon so he could choke off the urge to take a swing at Green.

He wanted to grab him by the little white square of his collar and scream in his face. Ask him whose fucking fault he thought this was, because it absolutely hadn't been the Devil. Sam could all but guarantee that.

"Excuse me." Green bowed his head, wiped his eyes clear with thumb and forefinger. "Heather's case was very personal to me. Much like Mr. Kemper's is to you."

"Yeah," Sam said, completely emotionless. He couldn't afford to let anything through.

"Sam - " Green looked at him, then clapped both hands onto his shoulders. "Listen to me. I don't want you to blame yourself. It probably didn't have anything at all to do with what happened yesterday."

Of course it didn't. The words hit the inside wall of Sam's skull almost hard enough to give him a headache. It was everything that came before. And on some level, you pious bastard, you know that. Don't you?

"We have to take comfort in knowing her soul is safe in Heaven," Green soothed. "She was called home. She's finally free of pain, of suffering. I know you understand."

"Of course." Sam nodded.

"It's so much better than where she was." Green's throat worked. "What she was subjected to here."

"Yeah," Sam agreed bleakly.

Because at least Green was absolutely right about that.